Antholz 2024-2025 Preview

It feels too good to be true. After an incredible week in Ruhpolding, in really every sense, the World Cup moves on to one of the most highly regarded stops in Antholz. You’ll be hard pressed to find somebody, athlete or fan, who doesn’t love Antholz. From the beautiful vistas to the generally terrific racing, it’s always a good stop and one I personally look forward to every season!

Schedule:

– Thursday January 23: Women’s 7.5km Sprint
– Friday January 24: Men’s 10km Sprint
– Saturday January 25: Women’s 10km Pursuit + Men’s 4×7.5km Relay
– Sunday January 26: Women’s 4x6km Relay + Men’s 12.5km Pursuit

Course Overview:

– Stadium altitude: 1634 meters
– Maximum altitude on course: 1673 meters
– Lowest altitude on course: 1626 meters
– Stadium capacity: 15,000 spectators
– Course capacity: 6,000 spectators

1)2.5km Course to be used for the Women’s Sprint, Men’s Relay, and Men’s Pursuit
2) 3.3km Course to be used for the Men’s Sprint
3) 2km Course to be used for Women’s Pursuit and Women’s Relay
4) The entire course with all maps overlaid on one another to give full spectrum of the venue

In general the track at Antholz is absolutely beloved by athletes and fans alike. It is stunning to behold and the athletes seem to appreciate it as a fair challenge. It is so loved that we actually had to start asking athletes to name a different favorite track during interviews. There are a few that don’t love the altitude though, like Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold. She has been here for a full week preparing so maybe that will make all the difference for her though?

Now just because everybody likes it doesn’t mean that it is an easy track. It certainly is not. Certainly a step up in challenge from Ruhpolding. But it is almost always in excellent condition. There is plenty of climbing but nothing outrageous. The range is fair. It’s a good test of biathlon. I just can’t wait to see it.

Weather

South Tyrol Weather Service:

International Weather Service:

– Average Temperature for mid to late January: High 1C and Low -7C.
– Usually it is quite sunny with only a few days of snow during the month
– Some days it can be windy, certainly nothing like Ruhpolding’s shooting friendly venue.

I’m going to defer to the South Tyrol Weather service this week as they likely are a little more dialed in. Also I like that they have the temperatures at the venue a couple of degrees cooler than listed by the other weather service.

This is about the same as we’ve seen in Antholz the last few years and the course has always been in good condition. Antholz has a lot of sun exposure. Thankfully it is getting below freezing at night at least, but it could be a little sloppy by Saturday and Sunday. However, the team at Antholz is able to do a LOT of good work and so I’m sure it will be top shape.

News and Notes

1) 🇳🇴 Norway’s Big Roster Changes – The Norwegian men made the big choice we’ve been waiting on. The roster they chose for Antholz will also be their roster for Lenzerheide World Championships unless there are additional injuries or illness. Of course we’ve seen several athletes get sick including on the Norwegian team. For these two weekends though they are going with:
– Johannes Thingnes Boe
– Tarjei Boe
– Sturla Holm Laegreid
– Vebjoern Soerum
– Endre Stroemsheim
– Martin Uldal

Interestingly Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen was listed as a reserve with the distinction that he is racing the Antholz relay. He also is going to Lenzerheide and may race that relay as well. That will be determined at a later date though. This means that Johannes Dale-Skjevdal will be going to the European Championships and then presumably the IBU Cup. Christiansen is also noted to be going to the European Championships as well.

For the women Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold has been in Antholz since departing Oberhof to continue training and acclimating to high altitudes. She will rejoin the team this week. Juni Arnekleiv will leave the World Cup and return to the IBU Cup for the European Championships. They will be racing just five women this week.

2) 🇩🇪 Germany – The German women are making the interesting choice to just bring four women to Antholz. They will be rolling with Overall lead Franziska Preuss, Selina Grotian, Sophia Schneider, and Stefanie Scherer. Vanessa Voigt and Julia Tannheimer remain out will illness. Julia Kink was initially expected to be back for Antholz but she remains out as well.

Meanwhile David Zobel will head back to the IBU Cup while Philipp Horn returns after a planned week off for Ruhpolding to work on his shooting.

3) 🇨🇿 Marketa Davidova remains out as of the time of this writing. We’ll see if anything changes with her status. She had a great first two weeks of the season but has been missing since then due to a herniated disc in her back. Heda Mikolasova will start prep for Junior European Championships and Junior Worlds. Tereza Vinklarkova coming off her 2nd career IBU Cup top 10 in Brenzno will join the World Cup team.

On the men’s side they will take only 4 with Mikulas Karlik sick. They announced that Mikulas Karlik, Jakub Stvretecky, Tomas Mikyska and Ludek Abraham will be competing at the European Championships and the top man will go join the World Championships roster.

4) 🇨🇭 Elisa Gasparin has announced her retirement at the end of the year. None of us could have expected JT Boe to kick off the retirement announcements this year, but this is around when we start to have this type of news pop up. Elisa Gasparin is 33 years old so this isn’t a complete surprising news. She did have a 13th place finish in the Individual in Ruhpolding which is tied for the 6th best finish in her career. Hopefully she has a few more of those left in her this season!

Recent History

Women’s Top 5 Finishers Last 5 Competitions
– Includes 2020 World Championships
– Does not include retired or ineligible athletes

Athlete	Finishes
Dorothea Wierer 🇮🇹	🥇🥇🥇🥇🥈, 4, 5
Julia Simon 🇫🇷	🥇🥇🥈, 5
Hanna Oeberg 🇸🇪	🥈🥉, 4, 4, 4
Lena Haecki-Gross 🇨🇭	🥇🥉
Lisa Theresa Hauser 🇦🇹	🥇🥉
Lou Jeanmonnot 🇫🇷	🥈🥉
Elvira Oeberg 🇸🇪	🥉🥉
Vanessa Voigt 🇩🇪	4, 4
Franziska Preuss 🇩🇪	4, 5
Yulia Dzhima 🇺🇦	🥈
Lucie Charvatova 🇨🇿	🥉
Juni Arnekleiv 🇳🇴	5
Karoline Knotten 🇳🇴	5
Anamarija Lampic 🇸🇮	5

Men’s Top 5 Finishers Last 5 Competitions
– Includes 2020 World Championships
– Does not include retired or ineligible athletes

Athlete	Finishes
Johannes Thingnes Boe 🇳🇴	🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥈🥈, 5, 5, 5
Quentin Fillon Maillet 🇫🇷	🥈🥈🥈🥉, 4
Sturla Hold Laegreid 🇳🇴	🥈🥈🥉, 5
Tarjei Boe 🇳🇴	🥈🥈, 4, 4
Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen 🇳🇴	🥇, 4, 5
Martin Ponsiluoma 🇸🇪	🥈🥉, 5
Johannes Dale-Skjevdal 🇳🇴	🥈, 4, 5
Emilien Jacquelin 🇫🇷	🥇🥉
Jakov Fak 🇸🇮	🥉, 4
Roman Rees 🇩🇪	4, 4
Johannes Kuehn 🇩🇪	🥉
Vebjoern Soerum 🇳🇴	🥉
Antonin Guigonnat 🇫🇷	4
Lukas Hofer 🇮🇹	4
Anton Dudchenko 🇺🇦	5

Recent Memorable Moments/Performances

2024 Women’s Short individual – The 2023-2024 season was a dream year from Lena Haecki-Gross. She started out strong and just never wavered the whole year. She ended the year with five podiums including two wins, the first of which came in the Antholz Short Individual. She went 20/20, which she needed to do, as Julia Simon finished only 20 seconds back even with 2 misses. The victory felt like the pinnacle of this career season for Haecki-Gross. The capstone achievement of, to that moment, her capstone season. It turns out she was going to repeat the feat with a win in the Mass Start in Oslo. This moment, though, was magnificent. She followed up her Short Individual win with a third place in the Mass Start in Antholz. It was an amazing weekend!

2023 Women’s Sprint – Dorothea Wierer won the race which was one of the reasons she was able to keep the Overall competition at least interesting with Julia Simon late in the season. Emotionally, though, it was Chloe Chevalier’s day. She finished in 2nd with a brilliant 10/10 and the 8th best course time on the day. It was the single best performance of her career and ultimately, with her retirement announcement in December, will go down as the only podium finish of her career. This finish was made all the more special because her sister was there watching her race. The camera found Anais Chevalier-Bouchet as she was nervously watching Chloe’s time on the final lap. You could just feel the anxiety coming out of her. When Chloe finished Chevalier-Bouchet raced over to give her a huge hug. It was a perfect Biathlon Family moment! Incidentally this was also one of Anamarija Lampic’s 5th place finishes in her debut season.

2023 Men’s Pursuit – Not much to say here at the top as it was a rather boring race. JT Boe was in the midst of the greatest season in biathlon history and this race was no different. He started the race with 30 seconds on Ponsiluoma and ended it with a 40 second win over Laegreid. However, this race also saw Niklas Hartweg and Sebastian Stalder finish 7th and 8th. This was just the 2nd time ever that two Swiss men finished in the top 10 together in World Cup history!

2022 Women’s Individual – This race was won by Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, the first of three wins she had over the last stretch of the season that included the Olympic Mass Start gold medal and led to her winning the Mass Start discipline globe. It was in the middle of a stretch where she had four top 5’s in seven races, the first time where I really started to think she could do something special. For me, though, the most memorable part of this race wasn’t the podium, it was who was just off of it. Clare Egan nearly had the race of her life and finished 4th, just 18 seconds off the podium. That was even with two misses! It’s so easy to say it because you could do it with almost any athlete, but one more hit target and she’s in 2nd.

2022 Women’s Mass Start – I remember thinking all season long about how Dorothea Wierer felt like she was building towards the Olympics slowly but surely. This race was the perfect summation of that build up. Wierer had a beautiful race. She had two misses but they were both in the first two shoots. She went perfect in the first standing shoot to close the gap to 14 seconds. She went perfect again in the 2nd standing shoot and left the range just 4 seconds back of Anais Cheavlier-Bouchet. The last lap was clinical. She made the surge early in the lap to close the gap. Then she just kept pushing all the way to the finish. Wierer kept pushing it out eventually taking home an immensely satisfying win on home snow proving she was ready for the 2022 Olympics.

2021 Women’s Individual – Sure seems like a lot of the races I remember best from Antholz seem to be women’s races. In this case everybody likely knows that I have a soft spot for Lisa Theresa Hauser. This Individual race proved to be the first of her five career victories. She had been building to it the last several years and particularly throughout the season. She went 19/20 and with the 4th best course time that was more than enough to take the day by 43 seconds over Yulia Dzhima. That season she ended up with two wins and seven podiums as she finished the year 6th in the Overall. This race was a perfect encapsulation of peak Lisa Theresa Hauser.

2020 Worlds Women’s Sprint – Yes of course we remember Marte Olsbu Roeiseland’s phenomenal performance at the 2020 Antholz Worlds. It was when she really announced herself as one of the greats of her generation with a medal in every event including five gold medals. She had already finished 4th in the Overall the prior year, and she would of course go on to finish 2nd in the 20202-2021 Overall and win the Globe in the 21-22 season. And she would dominate the 2022 Olympics just like she did these Worlds. But the 2020 Worlds were a major moment for her. The big memory from this race is American Susan Dunklee having the race of her life at exactly the right moment. One of just four women to go 10/10 and she was the one who had the ski speed to go with it. She ended up with the Silver medal!

Mild Predictions:

-I’m really curious to see how JT Boe 🇳🇴 looks this week. Just like most venues JT Boe has a huge amount of historical success in Antholz. He clearly hasn’t been his normal self until flashing a bit during the Mass Start. JT Boe has relieved himself of the burden of his impending retirement, he’s another week removed from his illness, and he loves Antholz. Hopefully we see him getting back to his normal self this week.

-QFM 🇫🇷 has been getting a little bit stronger the last few weeks. I’m predicting we see the strongest weekend of his season this week and we start to get excited about what he might be able to do in Lenzerheide.

-Dorothea Wierer 🇮🇹 gets her first podium of the season and we all get very excited about what she might do in Lenzerheide.

-Lou Jeamonnot 🇫🇷 is going to win the Pursuit

– 🇨🇭 Switzerland has another good week as they continue to build towards their home World Championships. It’s been moving towards this the last few weeks with Niklas Hartweg, Amy Baserga and Joscha Burkhalter having good results. This week I hope we see Lena Haecki-Gross join the mix!